Gerald
08-20-11, 06:53 AM
One of the hardest-fought contests in Olympic history was a water polo match between Hungary and the USSR in 1956 - a match which came to symbolise the Hungarian struggle against Soviet rule.
"A whistle came, I looked at the referee, I said 'What's the whistle for?' And the moment I did that, I knew I'd made a horrible mistake."
Ervin Zador, 21 years old in 1956, was the star player in Hungary's Olympic water polo team at the Melbourne Olympics in Australia.
"I turned back and with a straight arm, he just smacked me in the face. He tried to punch me out."
The man punching Ervin Zador was a Russian water polo player, during one of the most highly charged battles in Olympic history.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9835/54698120zadorap224.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/54698120zadorap224.jpg/)
Ervin Zador: "I saw about 4,000 stars... I felt warm blood pouring down"
t was only a matter of weeks since Soviet tanks and troops had rolled into the Hungarian capital Budapest - brutally crushing an anti-Soviet uprising.
Hundreds of Hungarians had been killed, thousands more arrested.
But at the height of the crackdown, the country's water polo team had been cut off from the news at a training camp in Czechoslovakia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14575260
Note: 20 August 2011 Last updated at 08:15 GMT
"A whistle came, I looked at the referee, I said 'What's the whistle for?' And the moment I did that, I knew I'd made a horrible mistake."
Ervin Zador, 21 years old in 1956, was the star player in Hungary's Olympic water polo team at the Melbourne Olympics in Australia.
"I turned back and with a straight arm, he just smacked me in the face. He tried to punch me out."
The man punching Ervin Zador was a Russian water polo player, during one of the most highly charged battles in Olympic history.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9835/54698120zadorap224.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/54698120zadorap224.jpg/)
Ervin Zador: "I saw about 4,000 stars... I felt warm blood pouring down"
t was only a matter of weeks since Soviet tanks and troops had rolled into the Hungarian capital Budapest - brutally crushing an anti-Soviet uprising.
Hundreds of Hungarians had been killed, thousands more arrested.
But at the height of the crackdown, the country's water polo team had been cut off from the news at a training camp in Czechoslovakia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14575260
Note: 20 August 2011 Last updated at 08:15 GMT